This invention relates to a soccer training device and a soccer training assembly wherein the device is used in conjunction with a standard backyard soccer goal.
The growth of soccer in the United States during the past two decades has been quite rapid. U.S. Youth Soccer is the youth division of the United States Soccer Federation, the governing body of soccer in the United States. U.S. Youth Soccer registers young players between the ages of 5 and 19 and is made up of 55 member state associations, one in each state, with two in California, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas. The U.S. Youth Soccer Association has seen exponential growth in recent years. It had 1.4 million members in 1988 and 1.7 million in 1991. It now has more than 3,000,000 registered members. It is a member of a much larger soccer community. Boys and girls register to play with one of the 6,000+ clubs and leagues formed by their state association. U.S. soccer, along with more than 197 other national soccer organizations are members of the FIFA, the Federation Internationale de Football Association. The FIFA serves as the international governing body for soccer and U.S. Soccer has been a member since 1913.
In 1986, the United States Amateur Soccer Association, which represents players 19 years old and older, had only 96,000 members. It now counts more than 3,000,000 registered members. But the formal registrations figures only tell part of the story. According to the 1996 National Soccer Participation Survey, conducted by the Soccer Industry Counsel of America, there are nearly 17 million soccer participants in the U.S., more than 7 million are classified as frequent players (25 days or more a year).
It should be noted that approximately 44% of soccer playing Americans are women, showing that soccer has truly taken over as a sport for all young people. Now, with major league soccer having been launched, all these young players have new heroes to emulate, more news coverage to read and dreams to aspire to you, all of which combine to create a much stronger marketplace for soccer equipment and training devices than in the past.
Today, soccer is already, by far, the most popular participant sport among American youth, far out pacing the more traditional sports of baseball, football and basketball. In fact, soccer surpassed little league baseball more than 15 years ago and has continued to attract more youth players than any other widely organized team sport.
The problem is that, as with most team sports like baseball and football, it is difficult for individuals to practice the game of soccer alone. The solution then, is to create a device that will enable individuals to train for soccer, while maintaining long term interest, economically offering a variety of degrees of difficulty and making the product portable and easy to assemble by one person. Our research indicates that soccer is the most deficient of all sports with regards to individual training devices. Currently, there are no products on the market designed to help players hone their kicking and aiming skills without the help of a trainer/coach or other players. Previous attempts as such products have fallen short with regard to varying degrees of difficulty, maintaining the individual interests for extensive periods of time, and simulating true conditions of soccer as it is played.
Various types of sports training devices are known. U.S. Pat. No. 3,637,210 (Brantley) discloses a football dummy 36, flexibly suspended between two posts on a cable 15, which offers a moving target. The vertical height at one end is raised or lowered with crank 11 at the bottom of post 1 which causes the dummy to traverse between post 1 and post 2. A tubular spring housing 32 on the dummy 36 causes the dummy to reverse direction when it reaches the end of its traverse.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,765,675 (DiMarzio) discloses a simulated hockey goalie 11, which moves across the mouth of a simulated hockey net 17 via threaded column 13 riding a feed screw 14. The goalie 11 slides back and forth across the mouth of the simulated net 17 propelled by an electric driving motor 23. The player 26 stands at one end of a rectangular shaped room and shoots pucks 24 onto a surface 25 toward the net. An endless belt 31 moves the pucks toward the depressed trough 34. Another endless belt may be used to return the pucks to the player.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,840,228 (Greaney) discloses a device 22 which is fixedly attached to a ordinary hockey goal 11. The goalie is pivoted on the device 22 and the device is V-shaped so that when a player 16 propels the puck 17 toward the goalie, the puck is diverted to the right or the left. The player may score by propelling the puck through an opening through the legs of goalie. However, in this case the goalie and is stationery and, therefore, does not challenge the player as much as does a moving goalie.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,645,210 (Patsy) discloses a soccer training device consists of a moving target 18 mounted on a slide 17 driven by endless belt 27 attached to a motor. Limit switches 30 and 36 stop travel at each end or reversing switches are used to change the direction of the target. The target is open and may be in the shape of a square or circle.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,181,725 (Leras, et al.) discloses a soccer training shooting target which has a weight 22 attached to a top rope 24 which is connected to the upper edge of a target 21. The target 21 has an upper target 30, a center target 38 and lower target 48 at which the player 2 aims.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,271,624 (Sciortino) discloses a weighted body 2, which is attached to, and hangs down from, the cross-bar of a soccer goal G. The weighted body 2 defines a space between itself and the side post of the goal G at which a player P aims a ball B.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,503,402 (Moss, Jr.) discloses a practice focal device 12 which is removably attached to both a cross-bar member 82 and an upright post 88 of a soccer goal 82, defining an area at which the player aims a ball.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,628,515 (Levy) discloses a soccer training system having a visual target 12, which is mounted to the side post 36 of a soccer goal 30. The player practices by aiming a ball at the visual target which is attached to a hinge 22 to absorb the impact of the striking ball.
Accordingly, it is the general object of the invention to provide a soccer training assembly and device which improves upon, and is more effective and realistic than, exiting devices.
It is a further object of the instant invention to provide a soccer training assembly and device, which simulates conditions of an actual soccer game.
It is a yet a further object of the invention to provide a soccer training assembly and device which employs a simulated goalie which traverses the mouth of a standard backyard soccer goal while oscillating about its own axis.
It is still yet a further object of the instant invention to provide a soccer training assembly and device which is used in conjunction with a standard backyard soccer goal.
It is another object of the instant invention to provide a soccer training assembly and device with speed control to vary the difficulty faced by the player who is using the device.
It is still another object of the instant invention to provide a soccer training assembly and device which is inexpensive and easy to assemble and apply to a standard backyard soccer goal.
It is still yet another object of the instant invention to provide a soccer training assembly and device with an easily removable simulated goalie, so that the standard backyard soccer goal can be used for game play.
These an other objects of the instant invention are achieved by providing a soccer training assembly and device with a motor driven simulated goalie which traverses the mouth of a standard backyard soccer goal. The simulated goalie also oscillates about its own axis while it traverses the goal mouth. A ball return means is also included which returns the ball to the player after the ball has entered the mouth of the goal. The device includes a pair of uprights attached to a motor drive enclosure. The simulated goalie is attached to a motor driven goalie motion device mounted within the enclosure, which imparts a transverse and oscillating motion to the goalie A speed control varies the traversing and oscillating speeds of the simulated goalie. A disconnect pin allows the simulated goalie to be removed from the mouth of the goal, so that the goal can be used for game play.